91% brewhouse efficiency?

Briess Golden Light LME 6 lbs.

2-Row Malt 2 lbs. *

Black Malt debittered 1 lbs. *

English Roasted Barley 1 lbs.

Malted Oats 1 lbs. *

Mashed @155f 60min 1.25qt/lb

Batch sparged at 1.25qt/lb 168F x2

Volume after boil 4.8gal. Topped up to 6gal & pitched.

gravity @ pitch 1.073, temp 74f.


* items added to NB Dry Irish Stout extract kit.


Calculated to be 91% efficient

Did i miss something? Should I use the 4.8 after boil or the 6gal in the fermentor that the sample was tested at?
My boil was slow because I was afraid to bring the temps up too quickly. First time using my Bayou Classic and dreading a boilover. 20min for initial boil and 10 min back to boil after hop and LME addition.

rechek of gravity was at 1.064 for 6gal in fermentor.

Did you take into account that the LME has 100% efficiency since you're not trying to get anything out of it; you're just adding it to the boil?

Yeah, if it was all grain anything above 85% I would consider just about impossible.

But with 6# of LME @ 100% efficiency, 91% sounds about right

looks like it'll be a tasty oatmeal stout

Yeah, efficiency is kinda a useless # when you are using extract. Extract is already.....wait for it.....extracted at 100% efficiency so I'm not sure what purpose there is to figuring out your overall efficiency if you're not going all grain brewing.

Most grains only have an extract potential of about 80%. Like has been said, it's the extract which is 100% efficiency since it is 100% malt sugars.

+1 that efficiency is meaningless when most of your sugars are from DME.

TopherM said:

so I'm not sure what purpose there is to figuring out your overall efficiency if you're not going all grain brewing.

Click to expand...

I will say that efficiency for a PM is still a useful figure. You just need to exclude the extract when you calculate the efficiency.

Yeah, I was trying to get used to accounting and tracking my efficiency so I can Begin tweaking my setup.

If LME throws the whole thing off I guess I'll have to wait until I clear a carboy in about two weeks when I bottle my Caribou Slobber. My brewing assistant app seemed to account for the DME and pegged 72% for an SG of 1.064.

Bavarian Hefe will tell the tale in two weeks I guess.

I think you have some big measurement problems.
In your OP, you say "gravity @ pitch 1.073, temp 74f."
Then you say "rechek of gravity was at 1.064 for 6gal in fermentor."
That's a very big difference.
Now, 1.064 at 74F = 1.066 at 60F (assuming your hydrometer is calibrated to 60F). That means that you have 66 points per gallon in total.
The LME will account for 36 points per gallon, so according to your measurements, the grains would have to supply an extra 30 points per gallon, but even at 100% efficiency, they couldn't supply that much.

You cannot make accurate calculations if you use inaccurate data as input to those calculations.

-a.

ajf said:

I think you have some big measurement problems.
In your OP, you say "gravity @ pitch 1.073, temp 74f."
Then you say "rechek of gravity was at 1.064 for 6gal in fermentor."
That's a very big difference.
Now, 1.064 at 74F = 1.066 at 60F (assuming your hydrometer is calibrated to 60F). That means that you have 66 points per gallon in total.
The LME will account for 36 points per gallon, so according to your measurements, the grains would have to supply an extra 30 points per gallon, but even at 100% efficiency, they couldn't supply that much.

You cannot make accurate calculations if you use inaccurate data as input to those calculations.

-a.

Click to expand...

The re-check was done with a sample from the fermentor without the hop debris I discovered in the forst sample. More reading indicated the hops might be a problem hence the re-check that got 1.064. I'm still trying to sort out which formula to use to find out my efficiency as there seen to be at least four definitions of efficiency. I want to be able to know how well I got the sugars from the grain into the carboy for fermentation.

More reading, grumble....grrr.....

This is challenging. In a good way.

jotakah said:

Yeah, if it was all grain anything above 85% I would consider just about impossible.

But with 6# of LME @ 100% efficiency, 91% sounds about right

looks like it'll be a tasty oatmeal stout

Click to expand...

once i started milling my own grains, i routinely get 88-90%, nothing impossible about it. Also I have read articles from numerous breweries who get 95% out of their systems. So I dont know if the OP got 91% or not, but it is possible.

Hop debris will not affect your gravity readings unless there is so much debris that the hydrometer sits on the debris rather than floating in the sample.

-a.

The article indicated that lighter than liquid hops under the sample can add artificial boyancy to the hydrometer.
And I checked the second sample twice, clean sample, no bubbles in the test jar, sitting on a level counter.

jotakah said:

Yeah, if it was all grain anything above 85% I would consider just about impossible.

Click to expand...

I would have to disagree. i routinely get 84.5% on my batches.

I'm also adjusting the hydrometer readings to the wort temp. crushing my own grains, fly sparging, etc...

But then again you said 85%, so perhaps i'm doing everything the best i possibly can.

moski said:

Yeah, I was trying to get used to accounting and tracking my efficiency so I can Begin tweaking my setup.

If LME throws the whole thing off I guess I'll have to wait until I clear a carboy in about two weeks when I bottle my Caribou Slobber. My brewing assistant app seemed to account for the DME and pegged 72% for an SG of 1.064.

Bavarian Hefe will tell the tale in two weeks I guess.

Click to expand...

72% is pretty good efficiency from your partial mash

Soup4you2 said:

I would have to disagree. i routinely get 84.5% on my batches.

I'm also adjusting the hydrometer readings to the wort temp. crushing my own grains, fly sparging, etc...

But then again you said 85%, so perhaps i'm doing everything the best i possibly can.

Click to expand...

wow! awesome job soup4you! I'm working in the 69-82% range depending on the gravity beer I want to make

jotakah said:

wow! awesome job soup4you! I'm working in the 69-82% range depending on the gravity beer I want to make

Click to expand...

I was stuck somewhere around 40%, then i decided to start doing mash outs and milling the grains myself.